The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal filed by a 47-year-old British national, Alan Hodgson, against his conviction and sentence to 20 years’ imprisonment in 2004 for his role in the Tema cocaine case in which 588.33 kilogrammes of cocaine was smuggled into the country. Five others, namely, Kevin Gorman, then 59, an American; Mohammed Ibrahim Kamil, a Ghanaian; John David Logan, then 43, Frank Laverick, then 43, a British national, and Sven Herb, a German, then 45, faced charges for conspiracy and possessing 588.33 kilogrammes of cocaine without lawful authority. The Accra High Court, on Wednesday, October 27, 2004, handed down 20 years' imprisonment to each of the six persons it found guilty of smuggling the 588.33 kilogrammes of cocaine into the country. However, Laverick and Logan were later acquitted and discharged by the Supreme Court when they went on appeal. In its unanimous decision, the court upheld the conclusions reached by both the trial court and the Court of Appeal on the matter. They had been charged with conspiracy, but Gorman, Laverick and Hodgson had been additionally charged with importing narcotic drugs without licence from the Ministry of Health. Gorman was further charged with using his property for narcotic offence. The court ordered that all moneys retrieved from the convicts — $18,841, £1,150 pounds sterling, 9,485 Euros, Venezuelan currencies, 40 Thai dollars, 10 Swiss francs and GH¢420 — be confiscated to the State. It ordered that Gorman's house, house number 33/7 located at Tema Community 10, and a van used in conveying the drugs from Prampram to the house be confiscated to the State. It said a handbook entitled "Cocaine" should be destroyed before the registry of the court. However, a car with registration number GT 1718 S, a revolver and a shotgun which the court found were not connected to the crime should be returned to them. The case of the prosecution was that Gorman was a Director/Shareholder and Operations Manager of a shipping company called Tuna To-Go Limited based in Tema. On January 7, 2004, the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) and the Drug Enforcement Unit (DEU) of the Police Service raided Gorman’s residence and discovered bales and parcels of a whitish substance suspected to be cocaine. The parcels were concealed in a specially constructed hole or compartment in a wall behind a large dressing mirror. The prosecution said Gorman, Logan, Laverick and Hodgson who were living in the house at the time were confronted with the substance. The Supreme Court held that the decisions of the trial court and the Court of Appeal could not be interfered with since the evidence by the prosecution to link the appellant to the case was very enormous, although he was in the house as a visitor and also arrived in the country three days before the drug was carted from the Prampram Beach to Tema. It said the visit of Hodgson was not coincidental but was to accomplish a criminal offence. Source: Stephen Sah/Daily Graphic/Ghana